Debating the Proposed Islands Trust Policy Statement
By Keith Porteous (editorial)
Recently you may have noticed letters to the editor relating to the proposed Islands Trust Policy Statement that’s currently under review, and an accompanying leaflet insert outlining a legal opinion from the private law firm of Don Lidstone. I’d seen this opinion previously in correspondence I received from the Green MLA for Saanich-North & the Islands, Rob Botterell. It’s very different from the legal opinions that the Islands Trust Council relied on to create a new and revised Trust Policy Statement (TPS) proposal.
The primary tension expressed in these differing opinions is the interpretation of the Islands Trust’s mandate to preserve and protect, and more specifically in relation to the term “unique amenities.” People that are critical of the proposed TPS claim that it opens our communities to more “development”, while advocates of the proposed TPS interpret the mandate to include efforts to address the crisis of housing accessibility and affordability, recognizing human settlement as a part of our “unique amenities.”
The Islands Trust Council, in consultation with the Province of B.C. that created the Islands Trust Act, and following review of several expert legal opinions, came to a consensus on their interpretation of the Islands Trust Mandate. “The object of the Islands Trust is to preserve and protect three specific elements:
a) the trust area; b) its unique amenities; and c) [its unique] environment,
for the benefit of the residents of i) the trust area, and ii) of British Columbia generally,”
We can see where our human settlements are recognized as a part of the Islands Trust Council’s legal interpretation of “unique amenities”, and where the Trust mandate includes the benefit for “residents”, and where opponents to the proposed TPS do not see the interpretation in the same way. The opinion of lawyer Don Lidstone that appeared in the insert in TIG, relies on a definition of “unique amenities” from a Policy Position published in 1986, 40 years ago, and prior to affordable housing scarcity of the last 20+ years.
My personal bias is toward “slow growth/no growth”, but we are in an intensifying housing crisis where the marketplace has priced out most working families and individuals, and favoured retirees and the wealthy who can afford to buy land and homes in our community. This dramatic market shift increases the difficulty of sustaining the necessary demographic mix of residents, where more than half of our residents are over 60 years old, among the highest mean age in Canada, and this continues to trend upward.
We need to consider “carrying capacities” of water and the environment within a current Denman Official Community Plan that has a planned “build out” of residential properties to a total of about 2000 residents, up from the current approx.1600. Denman Island’s growth rate by percentage has been amongst the highest in B.C.. The Denman Island OCP has a kind of soft cap on population, but allows for some exceptions that are not to exceed 5%, about an additional 100 residents. That additional 5% needs to be directed at affordability.
So far, there hasn’t been much of any progress toward housing solutions in our community, including the initiatives of the Local Trust Committee to create opportunities for small secondary dwellings (minor increases in density). The Province’s support for housing seems to favour urban projects where services can be most easily delivered, and there is a low priority for rural community housing initiatives. Every local home, business, community building, and farm has impacted the Denman environment and its carrying capacities.
Our challenge is to protect the environment, create more opportunities for conservation of habitat and natural resources, and to respect that our community needs affordability and diversity to sustain itself. The proposed TPS is an attempt to create a consensus on the Trust Mandate. It neither fully satisfies the protection of the environment nor the need to sustain a healthy human community. Whatever the outcome of this debate, there is much more we must do to find affordable housing solutions.
The Islands Trust Mandate: “The object of the trust is to preserve and protect the trust area and its unique amenities and environment for the benefit of the residents of the trust area and of British Columbia generally, in cooperation with municipalities, regional districts, improvement districts, First Nations, other persons and organizations and the government of British Columbia.”
